What the Universe Wants
by teddyyyy123
Summary: Harry and Draco didn't ask to die. They definately didn't ask to be revived. But when the Universe gives you a task, you can't exactly turn it down, can you?


If we're being honest, I didn't think it would happen again so soon. In fact, I thought that I would live a long, happy life without having to worry about it for a long time. But nope. Wizard drug dealers exist. Anti-boggart potion, which makes people see their absolute wildest dreams with no escape. Dementor's hug, which works like the Imperious Curse, except if you don't follow your orders, you get choked to death. And my personal favorite, Lemon Drops, which makes people jump off of tall buildings.

They had been driving the DMLE mad for weeks. And when we finally found their headquarters, the nutters had let loose a series of dark creatures who completely discombobulated the Auror force. It took almost the entire department and a few Unspeakables to overpower them, and even then, it wasn't without deaths.

Including mine.

I'm dead.

I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. Again.

And not only am _I_ dead, but Draco is too.

"We're dead."

"Amazing conclusion you've come to, Harry. What made you realize it? The blast of green or the lack thereof?" Draco says.

"Ha ha," I deadpan.

Draco just scowls in my direction and walks towards the white gates.

"D'you think they lead to Heaven or Hell?" he asks.

"I don't know. There were no gates the last time I died. But knowing you, they might lead to Hell."

"The last time you died you came back. I doubt that'll happen again, idiot," he spits.

I'm about to reply with something cutting when the gates slam open.

"Enter," someone growls, and they don't sound entirely human, so I decide to listen. Apparently, so does Draco.

We creep into a completely empty, completely white area. I look at the ground which seems like a blank abyss. We don't even cast shadows. I remember once reading something about death, where it said that wherever you go, you are neither in time nor space, but rather in a limbo, with nothing connecting you to the physical world save for your body.

There seems to be no end to the space. It was like if I wanted to, I could jump and fall through the floor into nothing. Even Draco's hair is darker than it, the antiseptic light shining even brighter than the white-blonde strands. I wonder how my hair looks in contrast to the room. I probably stick out like a sore thumb. Though, I think, really everything sticks out like a sore thumb in here.

"Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter," the voice booms.

I look over and see Draco looking around. He's almost see through, and I wonder if I look the same.

"Yes?" I answer tentatively, afraid that I may condemn myself if I say anything even slightly out of pocket. I don't know who this being is, but if they're anything like God I don't want to piss them off.

"You are in limbo."

Draco raises an eyebrow with fear clearly written on his face. "Okay?"

"You have both worked very hard in your lifetimes. I'm sure you would both be grateful for an eternal rest." The voice pauses, seemingly mulling over its next words. "However, there is a dark force settling over the Wizarding World and only you can vanquish it."

"Er," I start, eloquently. "No disrespect, but who are you?"

A dark shadow is cast over us and we both look up to see a single black eye. It looks large enough to swallow Earth whole.

"I am the Universe."

I look closer into the eye and see that it is speckled with stars and planets. It looks like it holds entire galaxies inside of it. I can feel it pulling me towards it, like my soul is trying to ground itself inside of it again. Then it disappears and we're staring at white again.

"Okay. If you're the Universe, why can't you just zap it out of existence, or something?," Draco asks, and honestly, it's a good question.

"That's not how it works," says the Universe.

"But don't you have absolute power?"

"Yes."

"Then why can't you do it?"

The eye appears again, sharp and dangerous, and the room becomes darker than before. "This phenomenon is under no obligation to make sense to you, a mere mortal. I would advise you to shut your mouth or suffer the consequences. This evil is the land and the sea. It has double-crossed me before. It could crush your bones or clog your lungs and almost nothing can stop it. We can only hope to contain it." Draco's skin pales to the same shade as the room and the eye disappears. I might've laughed if I wasn't, most likely, the same color.

"As to why I can't zap it out of existence, I am unable to intervene with anything happening inside of me. It would set everything off-balance and destroy me. It's just like how you are unable to perform surgery on yourself. You would die."

"What about the drugs?" I ask.

"Those were just a decoy," says the Universe. "He doesn't care about those. He just needed them to throw you off. and obviously, it worked."

"But if you can't destroy it, how can we?"

Draco shifts closer to me, seemingly out of fear of whatever consequences the Universe was talking about, and starts picking at the buttons on his auror robe. I watch as he shifts from foot to foot with his head down, trying not to draw attention to himself. Except, how can one not draw attention to themself when the entire room is blank?

"While I can not directly intervene with the happenings inside of me, I can send someone else to do it."

"Why us?" I blurt before I can think better of it.

"It is easier to reverse your deaths if you've only just died," said the Universe.

Draco suddenly stops moving and his entire body goes rigid as he stares straight ahead at nothing.

"Reverse our deaths?" he asks, faintly.

"Yes, though not without action from you.

"I will rewrite history so that you do not die, but you will not be in your bodies. Mere shells of your souls will host your bodies as you roam as spirits. You will be able to affect the physical world, and use magic as normal, but you will not be fully alive until you complete your task. Once you vanquish the darkness, you will once again host your bodies."

"Oh," is all Draco says before I hear a thump beside me.

Draco has fallen on the ground beside me. He almost looks like a corpse in the eerie white of the room. I kneel beside him and haul him into my arms while casting several spells, only to find that they don't work, because I'm dead. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, and I remember that I am in the presence of the Universe, so of course it could revive him without me.

"Draco?" I call out to him.

"I'm fine, Harry. Let go of me," he replies.

I let him rise and get back to my feet as well.

"So you want us to kill a dark force to revive ourselves?" I ask.

"Yes," speaks the Universe.

"Okay," I say.

And then, black.

...

When I wake up I'm beside Draco in the very spots where we died. Except, when I sit up, my body doesn't move with me.

"Holy-"

"Harry! Draco! Wake up! Quick, someone get a healer!" Someone yells. I quickly get up and look down onto my body. The person yelling is Ron. His face is redder than his hair and he looks scared out of his mind. I guess I would too if I thought my best mate was dead for the second time.

"Harry," a raspy voice whispers and I startle. Draco and I have been on first name basis for a year now but it's still weird hearing him say my name out loud.

"Yeah?" I whisper back.

"Our bodies. They're on the floor."

I look over at him to see if making a snide comment about him stating the obvious would be a good idea at the moment. Judging by the look on his face, the answer is no.

"I see," I reply and put a hand on his back. Over the years I've found that touch can help a person stay grounded when they're out of it. He doesn't flinch away so I shuffle a bit closer and wrap my arm around his waist. He leans his body weight onto me, which I find weird because our bodies are down there, and puts a hand over his face.

"Harry," he whispers. "Harry, we should be dead."

I sigh. I've fucked with death enough to know that you shouldn't fuck with death. He's completely right to be scared stupid, but I need him to concentrate on what we're here for, or at least calm down. "Hey, look at me," I say. He's still staring at his body so I use my unoccupied arm to turn him towards me. His face is a ghastly white and he looks as if he's going to pass out again any minute now. "Look at me," I try again. This time he lifts his eyes to mine. "It's okay. Well, it's not, but we have to deal with it." He still looks like he wants to bend over and throw up so I pull him to my chest and apparate to Grimmauld Place.

We land in one of the guest rooms. I push him onto the bed and head to the bathroom to grab him a pepperup potion. When I leave out of the bathroom I try to ignore the fact that my reflection didn't show up in the mirror, for sanity's sake.

Draco is under a layer of thick blankets when I get back to the bedroom and I wonder what would happen if my replacement walked in and saw him. Would he just see floating blankets in a human shape? How would he react? How would _I_ react? Would we react in the same way?

I hand Draco the potion and sit down on the edge of the bed as he downs it in one go. He sets the empty vial on the nightstand beside the bed and sits up to rest against the headboard.

"So," he says.

"So."

I lie backwards onto the bed and stare at the ceiling, trying not to think about the past few hours. Years of being on the Auror force have taught me to control my heart rate, but they do nothing to prevent my mind from racing. It shouldn't be like this. I should be clear headed. I should have a head to keep clear. Instead, I have nothing. No job, no home, no body. There were times when I hated being Harry Potter. Now? I would do anything to be him again. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, holding it for five seconds, then releasing it. I'm a shadow of myself watching a shell of myself perform his best imitation of me. And I have no say in this. I'm locked in now. I wonder, for a moment, what happens when you break a deal with the Universe. I decide that I don't really want to find out.

It is morning when I open my eyes again. When I look to my side, Draco is still asleep, finally looking peaceful for the first time since we died. When I move to leave the bed, I realise that I am fully on the mattress, not halfway hanging off. I don't think about how that could've happened.

I get up, careful not to make the bed creak, just in case my living counterpart is home, and head to the bathroom. I wish I could see my reflection. Just because my hair is wild doesn't mean I don't _try_ to fix it once in a while, it just doesn't cooperate. I grab some mouthwash and busy myself rinsing my mouth while running my fingers through my hair. But when I go to smell my breath, you guessed it, nothing. There's no hint of mint, no smell of blood from when I got my lip busted in the duel. There's just nothing. I guess personal hygiene won't be a priority for me now that I'm dead.

When I leave the bathroom Draco is still in bed. His hair shimmers in the sunlight and his breathing is blissfully even. It almost pains me to wake him, but we need to get started on this case. What could this dark force be? Is it here yet? How do we defeat it?

"Draco," I whisper, and he shifts under the covers. "Draco, get up."

"Mmph."

"Draco."

"No."

"Come on, Malfoy."

"Leave me alone."

I pull the covers off of him, irritably, and circle my arms around his waist to pull him off of the bed. He kicks and flails but it doesn't deter me.

"Potter! Put me down!"

"Wake up!"

"Okay, okay! I'm up! Let go!" he yells and I let him out of my arms. "I cannot believe-" I spot something on his neck he stops abruptly. "What?" he asks me.

"Is that...is that a hickey?" I ask.

"A...a hickey?" he asks and his hand flys up to his neck. "That's not possible. I- we're the only ones who can see each other." He rushes to the bathroom and I wish I'd have told him in advance that we didn't have reflections. "Potter!" he yells.

"Yes?" I call back.

"I can't see myself!"

I enter the bathroom and see him staring at the empty mirror in horror.

"I CAN'T SEE MYSELF!" Draco screeches and I wince.

"Yes, yes. I know," I say.

"Don't you _care_?!"

"Yes, of course! But how about we leave the bathroom?" I ask in an effort to get him to calm down.

"Leave the--" he turns towards me. "I can't see myself! What do I--? What do I _do_?!" Draco shoves past me and storms out of the bathroom. I go after him only because he has the mindset of a Janus Thickey patient at the moment and he may just blow something up.

"We have to be careful--"

"CAREFUL? WE _DIED_ AND _CAME BACK TO LIFE_ AND WE HAVE NO REFLECTIONS AND SOMEHOW I HAVE A _HICKEY_\--" he breaks off mid rant to touch his throat again. "A hickey. I have a hickey. How did I get a hickey?" he asks, absently, and I try not to sarcastically reply that _I don't know, if I did, I wouldn't have asked you what it was _because it would not be well received right now.

"How about we start brainstorming about who or what this dark force is," I say. "I was thinking we could start with the gang leaders. Let's go to the auror office and see what we can find on them."

"Yes," Draco agrees and I silently pray that he doesn't have anymore episodes for the time being. "Let's."

"Peter Karwoski, Kendall Smith, and Richard Bay."

Draco slides even further down into his seat looking desperately bored, and I can't say I blame him.

"All terribly bland names," he drawls. "Which one should we go after first?"

I shrug. "Well this one here, Karwoski, killed me."

"Then he's our first guy," says Draco.

There's shuffling outside of the door and we scramble out of the chairs, careful to put everything back where it was. Draco quickly makes a copy of the file and does an invisibility charm on it while I put the original one away. We back against the wall just as the door creaks open.

"Hold on, Robards," calls a voice I recognize as Ron's. "I'm just grabbing Harry's stress ball for him. You know how he gets when he's locked up in St Mungos for long periods of time."

He steps into the room and shuffles through the bottom left drawer of my desk.

"Why's there sand in here? Harry, mate, I know you're going through a rough time right now, but drawer beaches are not the way to go," he pauses and rifles through the drawer some more before grabbing my foam ball. "Aha, there you are," he mutters to himself. He's gone as soon as he came.

"Imagine if he'd have walked in and seen floating parchment. Would've been off his rocker," Draco sniggered.

"Probably would've called Hermione just to make sure he wasn't going insane," I say and laugh right with him.

Draco calms down first. "So tell me Harry. Why do you have sand in your desk?"

I shrug. "Some guy handed it to me in Diagon Alley. And before you say anything, yes, I did check it for curses. It's just sand.

"Any ideas as to why someone might just hand our Golden Boy sand?" Draco asks as he clocks an eyebrow.

I shrug again. "Dunno. Maybe they wanted to give me a tropical beach get away and that was the best they could do."

He snorts. "We should head back to Grimmauld place." I nod and we apparate back to the house.

The bed is remade when we get back. When I first moved in, Grimmauld Place hated me. Now, even in death, it's loyal to me. I run a hand down the door frame and step into the room after Draco. He's still rubbing at his neck every so often, as if he can wipe the hickey away. We still don't know how he got it but we've decided that it isn't important. After all, we really should be focusing on this dark force, whatever it is.

"Where does the location say?" I ask as Draco pulls out the file.

"Godric's Hollow," he says, scrutinizing the file. "Says here he never got his N.E.W.T.S. D'you think it'd be safe to just go in?"

"Maybe, as spirits, but we should still take the necessary precautions."

He nods and sits the file down beside him. I lie back onto the bed and run my fingers through my hair. Draco brings his legs up and crosses them, grabbing his ankles and bending over, touching his head to his feet. He looks terribly exhausted and I reach over to pet him on the back a few times.

"'M not a dog, Potter," he whines, but doesn't flinch away from my touch.

"I know," I reply and pet him again, on the head this time, just to annoy him.

"Potter," he snaps.

"Yes?" I reply cheekily.

"Stop."

"No."

He suddenly unfolds himself and smacks me on the head. I sit up, grab his wrists and pin him to the mattress, him struggling all the way. His face is bright red as he wriggles his body to be free of me.

"Harry!" he yells.

"Draco!" I yell back.

"Let go!"

"No!"

He tries to flip me but he's too light, and I have always been a better wrestler anyway. We continue struggling for power until Draco concedes with a breathless plea of "Okay, okay! You win! Let go!" I let him go and roll off of him, trying to catch my breath when I am suddenly smacked in the face with a pillow.

"Hey!"

I grab a pillow and try to hit him back, only to fail and get it knocked out of my hand. I fall backwards after a particularly swing and cross my forearms in front of my face.

"Perfect Potter! Defeated by the force of my pillow!" yells Draco.

"Stop! Stop!"

He is straddling my torso by the time he finally stops swinging the pillow into my arms. Then he collapses on top of me and laughs breathlessly, and I can't help but join in.

"Oh God!" he wheezes. "I can't believe you fell for that!"

His face is buried in the crook of my neck and one of his legs is thrown over me. I don't know if he realizes the position we're in, or is just laughing that hard, but he rolls off me at about the same time that I notice. We catch our breath and cautiously sit up, keeping an eye on one another, ready to strike if necessary.

"Harry," he snickers and clears his throat. "Harry," he says more seriously this time. "The criminal. We should start casting the spells so we can go investigate."

"Yeah," I say, and pull out my wand. I cast a few protective spells over him and he does the same to me once I finish.

"What's the address?" I ask, wrapping my arm around his waist to side along him.

"Number 5, Godric's Hollow."

I spin on my heel and apparate to the spot.

We arrive just outside of the house. It's a tiny little cottage and a few gnomes can be heard from the backyard. There are stones lined up around it and bushes against the side of the house. An owl perches on the top of the house and we step up to the door.

"D'you think we can walk through?" I ask.

"Yes, Potter, if we think _reeeeeally_ hard we can defy physics, something we have never been able to do, even in death," he looks at me pointedly. "We can't walk through the door."

"Apparating is defying physics and we're spirits," I say. He glares at me and I wrap my arm around his waist again to apparate into the house.

Upon entrance, we see nothing strange. I can hear voices coming from the basement and I gesture to Draco to follow me. We get to the door but Draco stops me as I touch the handle.

"They may not be able to hear _us_, but they _can_ hear the door," he says and I apparate us into the basement. As we land we hear the voices more clearly.

"_Yes_," someone moans and something bangs rhythmically against the wall. "_Please_!"

Oh.

_Oh_.

"Oh," Draco whispers beside me.

"We hadn't considered this possibility," I say quietly and creep towards another door, one that's bolted shut.

"What're you doing," Draco asks.

I ignore him. "D'you think they'll be able to hear me over themselves?"

His face lights up with understanding and he creeps towards me. "I'll cast a few silencing charms just in case," he says and starts casting a series of spells as I examine the door.

A few minutes pass and he turns to me as I'm carefully fiddling with the wards protecting the door. "Anything?" he asks.

"I think this is the last one," I murmur distractedly. After a few seconds I hear a click. "Aha," I say. "Can't hide from papa."

I open the door quietly and quickly thrust my wand out for any surprise attacks, but nothing comes. There are only a bunch of vials.

"I thought we got all of those before we died during the drug bust," says Draco.

"Apparently not," I say.

We carefully grab the vials and load them into an extended bag.

"Thank God we got completely ready before we left or we'd have to leave these here," Draco says.

I nod and continue loading the vials into the bag. Once we finish we continue searching the room for any hidden chambers but find none.

"Time to go then," I say and we exit the room, careful to put the wards back up securely.

We apparate out of the basement and do one last run down of the house.

"Harry?" Draco calls from the kitchen.

"Nothing," I say.

"Me either," he says and comes back to my side. "To the Ministry?"

"Yep," I say and apparate us straight into our office. We take the vials to Hermione's office in the Unspeakables department and leave quickly.

...

"I can not _believe_ they let him get away!" Draco yells for the umpteenth time time and I flop back onto the bed as he continues his rant. "And he doesn't even try to hide the potions better! Just has _sex_ like an idiot-"

"Draco, please calm down," I interrupt.

"Calm down!?"

"Yes. You're at a fifteen and I need you at like, a seven."

I hear him stomp over to the bed and drop beside me.

"Bastard," he says.

"Yes, I know. But he wasn't the darkness that the Universe was talking about," I say.

"So that leaves who? Smith and Bay?"

I turn over, lay on my stomach and yawn. "Yep, but we need some sleep."

I wake up with super itchy ears and Draco is yelling at me from downstairs. I quickly run down while swiping at the...sand...behind my ears.

"What? What is it?" I ask and he thrusts the newspaper towards me. "Wizard goes to St Mungos, found pregnant." I pause, noticing the picture. "Is that - is that Karwoski?"

"Yes! Whoever he was having sex with yesterday must've gotten him pregnant!" Draco yells and I'm tempted to tell him to dial it down again.

"Okay," I say calmly. "We're magical. Maybe it's just natural."

Draco shakes his head and walks around the kitchen counter to grab a glass of water. "There have only been two known cases of male pregnancy in the wizarding world and they were both due to dark magic," he says. "Whoever he was fucking is a suspect now."

"You think our guy wants to fuck the world into destruction."

"I think our guy has the power to cast spells as dark as this one."

"Draco-"

"As soon as he has the baby he'll die."

"I think this will be a dead end," I say, dryly.

"Or maybe," Draco drawls, "you're just not used to following rather than leading."

I huff and roll my eyes as we head down to the basement. It's exactly the same, minus the sounds of sex, and everything looks relatively unbothered. We walk into the bedroom and start casting protections spells on each other. Draco runs his wand along the wall and sniffs with disdain, contempt in his voice when he speaks.

"Fucking sex spells cloud everything up."

I snort and start casting a series of detection spells on the bed, careful not to touch the rumpled sheets for fear of disrupting the magical signature. "Well, two sickles to you if you can figure out who conjured this fucking lube. It's everywhere and it's making my job very difficult."

"Unfortunately, Harry, I'm having quite the same issues as you at the moment."

"More's the pity."

Once I finally get past all of the sex spells I can finally focus in on all of the loose magic from the actual sex. Sex causes the magic of two people to bond and flourish, making the entire act even more pleasurable.

I think I'm getting somewhere when I pick up Karwoski's signature. I'm still searching for his partner's when Draco speaks up.

"I can't find anything."

I sigh and lower my wand. "Me either. It's like he was fucking air."

"He was a nutter, so he very well could've been."

We try for a little while longer before we decide to call it quits. If we haven't found anything already, we'll probably never find it.

"Well, that was a waste," Draco said. "Guess we've got to go back to our original-" A beeping sound cuts him off. His wand flies up, taking his hand with him, and points towards a specific part of the wall. "Found you," he says.

He takes a minute to file through the signature to see who it belongs to. He utters a small gasp and whips his head to me as soon as he's finished. "What?" I ask.

"We've got our guy. Richard Bay."

I groan and roll my eyes. "That's one of our originals," I say exasperatedly. "All of this was pointless."

"Hey!" Draco squawks indignantly. "Not true! What've we'd have done Smith before him?"

"Then we'd have done Smith before him. Either way, we would've gotten our guy."

"But a lot slower," he says. I sigh and nod, giving up. I am not about to argue about the order of which we capture criminals.

"Yes, okay," I say. "Let's go now."

We apparate to Bay's house and land in a huge field with only one house in it. In every other direction, the grass stretches out for miles, nothing else visible.

"You sure this is the place?" I ask Draco.

"Yeah," he says and heads towards the lone house.

We are on the steps and about to apparate inside when the door bangs open to reveal a tall, good-looking man wearing nothing but a towel. His hair is still wet and I shift back to avoid getting any water on me. I glance over at Draco to see him admiring the man's lean tones and light tan and I'm immediately tense. His eyes snap to mine as I squeeze him a bit too hard to get him to focus.

"Gentlemen," the man says and we startle. How the hell can he see us? "Come inside!" He waves his hand and is immediately dry and dressed and I feel Draco shiver beside me.

"Of course," he says and I look over at him to see him staring, mesmerized, at the man.

We follow him inside of his house and into a lavish living room with what seems to be antique furniture. Three glasses filled with expensive-looking wine fly into their hands.

"Forgive me," he says. "My name is Richard Bay." He walks over to Draco and lifts his chin to face him. "What is your name, _mon choupinou_?"

"Draco," says Draco breathlessly.

"And I'm Auror Potter," I spit. And, sure, that's a little unnecessarily rude, but I don't trust this guy. I sit the glass down on the table in front of me and glare at the guy.

He looks over at me and blinks, then smiles. "Of course, _Auror_ Potter," he says. "I like that title. You sound like a big man."

"I'm an Auror too," Draco almost slurs. I look over to see his pupils blown completely wide so I wandlessly spell his glass empty.

"Of course you are, pet," says Bay and I want to punch him in the face. He leans down and whispers something in Draco's ear, causing him to get up and follow him into another room. I stand up quietly and follow them. How the fuck is this guy seeing us?

"_Ahh_," I hear and start to walk faster. I enter the room and see that Bay has Draco pressed up against the wall, and is snogging him while grinding up against him.

"Come to bed, my sweet," he says reaching between them.

"_Yesss_," Draco hisses and if I had any less self-control I would've _AK'd_ Bay right then and there. As it happens, years of Auror training have given me loads of self-control, so I don't.

I watch as Bay leads Draco to the bed and pushes him onto the mattress. He pulls down his pants fully and I am suddenly frozen, spell on my lips. The sight of Draco's cock makes me turn away and walk stiffly out of the room as the moaning continues. I almost make it to the staircase when I remember our conversation from the day before.

_"Whoever he was fucking is a suspect now."_

_"You think our guy wants to fuck the world into destruction."_

_"I think our guy has the power to cast spells as dark as this one."_

_"Draco-"_

_"As soon as he has the baby he'll die."_

I quickly walk back to the bedroom just in time see Bay, God help me, pressing into Draco. Then time stops.

And the bed explodes.

Draco and Bay are sent flying in opposite directions and I promptly cast a cushioning charm towards Draco. He seems to awaken from his daze and grabs his clothes from off the floor.

"Why the fuck am I naked?!" he yells and I roll my eyes, casting an _incarcerous_ at Bay.

"You almost has sex with this bastard," I say.

"And you let that happen?!"

"Fuck was I supposed to do?"

"I dunno? _Maybe not let it happen!_"

I disarm Bay and toss his wand to Draco for him to stick it into the evidence bag.

"Let me go!" yells Bay. "I'm royalty! Let me go!"

"Why? So you can end the fucking world?" I spit.

"End the world? I have no idea what you're talking about! I'm Fierro, prince of the underworld! Let me go!"

I exchange a look with Draco and look back at Bay. Draco casts _silencio_ at him and I cast a _mobilicorpus_. We apparate him to the Ministry and leave him right outside of Ron's office.

"Dick," I mutter and knock on Ron's door. He steps out and looks around, and then down to see Bay struggling at his feet.

"Bloody hell," he mutters. "Who's leaving all this stuff? They're working even faster than us!"

"Weasley's never been fully capable," says Draco and I bump him lightly

"Shut up."

"Wait."

"What?" I ask.

Draco runs his hands over his wrists and looks at me nervously. "Shouldn't we be back in our bodies?"

I think back to Bay, who is currently being levitated away by a pair of junior Aurors.

"Remember when he said he wasn't trying to end the world?" I ask slowly, nervously.

"Bollocks," says Draco. "We got the wrong guy."

I nod slowly and lean against the wall with a sigh.

"So there's one more guy to check and we don't even know how to find him. There's no address, frequent location, or familial home. He's a -- what did you call it?"

"John Doe."

"Yes," confirms Draco, pacing up and down the room. "A John Doe. He's completely wiped out of all Ministry files, as well. We can't do anything."

He abruptly stops pacing and looks at me with eyes as wide as saucers. "We'll be stuck like this forever." He plops down on the bed beside me and I briefly wonder how this looks then quickly push aside the thought. There are more important things to worry about. Like finding Kendall Smith.

Except, we can't, can we? He has no records. There's nothing on him except what happened during the drug bust.

Wait.

"Isn't he the guy who killed _you_?" I ask even though I almost certainly already knew the answer.

"Yes," says Draco. "He used some kind of fucking made up spell, turned my lungs to sand."

The stranger.

The sand.

Oh shit.

"Remember the sand in my desk?" I ask slowly. His eyes widen as if he just caught on.

"D'you have a pensive?"

...

"What kind of an Auror _are_ you?"

"Draco-"

"The sand was a _warning_, you complete and utter _dipshit_!"

"Draco-"

"Borgin and Burkes. Fucking Borgin and Burkes, Potter, how could you _not_ follow him?"

"I can't just follow random people, _Malfoy_," I say, emphasizing the use of his last name.

"Oh but you could follow me for _six bloody years-_"

"Calm the fuck down. We know where he might be now. If he bought something we can just check the sell records of the shop. It'll lead us straight to him."

"What if he used a fake name?" asks Draco sharply and I roll my eyes.

"Considering we couldn't find a Kendall Smith anywhere in the Ministry files," I say crossley, "whoever we interrogated gave a fake name anyway, so it doesn't matter."

Through Draco's silent seething, I can see the wheels turning in his head. This is exactly why I didn't mind getting him as a partner. He's like a male Hermione. He always needs a problem to solve and won't stop thinking until he finds a solution. It's quite admirable, really, unless you count the times when he shouts at me for rushing into a duel when he'd already come up with a much better plan than the 'maybe I'll die, maybe I won't' technique he says I tend to use whenever I'm feeling particularly Gryffindor. Never mind that it usually works, he _has_ to remind me that whatever I did on the field was _incredibly fucking stupid _and that I'm a _dunderhead who's lucky that he's miraculously still fucking alive_ despite his _utter idiocy_ and _lack of consideration for his partner._

My eyes click to his face and he's still thinking so much that I can practically hear the cogs turning in his head. I'm tempted to reach forward and smooth out his frustrated expression with my hand. Wait, what? Why would I do that?

His loud sigh brings me back to reality. "We've got to go _now_, Harry." He looks incredibly troubled and I already want to kill the bastard who dare put a wand to him.

"Yes," I say. "We do."

We apparate to a storefront just across the street from Borgin and Burkes and I can already feel that familiar sense of apprehension creeping up my spine from just looking at it. I remember the first time I was in here. Lucius was always so proper, even during the transaction of illegal artifacts, and my blood boils at the memory of him smacking Draco's hand with his cane.

We quickly cross the street and apparate into the shop. The front desk is unoccupied and Draco strides right to it, looking every bit like Lucius Malfoy, and reaches into one of the cabinets to grab a large book and make a duplicate of it before quickly putting it back where it belongs and disillusioning his own copy. He goes to leave from behind the desk but a voice heading back into the shop stops him.

"Yes, Mr. Fawley, we have just with you need," the scratchy voice of Borgin says as he headed into the front of the shop. "A freshly brewed batch of _Harenae Creaturae._ I won't ask what you need it for." He looks at Fawley uncertainty before grabbing the bottle and bagging it. "Your discretion is key."

"Thank you," Fawley's deep voice drawls. Except there's something wrong with the way he holds himself. He walks as if his shoulders are too light, his feet too big. There's just something off. Like he's..

Polyjuiced.

I look over at Draco and see him looking back at me. This is our guy. We just have to follow him out of here.

Fawley grabs the bag and heads out of the shop. Draco and I apparate out as he goes, hoping that wherever he goes the Aurors can get their too.

He heads down a side alley between _Potente Potions and Beyond_ and _The Pureblood's Shrunken Head Shop_. The alley seems to be a dead end but Fawley doesn't stop, he just walks right through the wall.

"What?" I breathe. Draco is pale beside me.

"I guess we'll have to try," he says.

We slowly creep forward towards the wall and stop. Neither of us thinks it's a good idea, I can tell. But I'm not about to give up. Never. So I do the only logical thing. I pull Draco back to the entrance of the alley.

Then I wrap my arm around his and hurtle forward to the wall like children at King's Cross Station. We fly right through the bricks and into a large room that looks like a cellar-

Where we are promptly attacked by a myriad of spells and it's only years of Auror training that save our lives.

"What's going on!" I yell to my partner. He's fighting off his own share of spells, hand moving in a blur.

"Well if you didn't notice," he said breathlessly, "We just ran into a trap!" He heads closer to me as fast as he dares without getting hit. "I'll cover for you. Send Weasley a Patronus."

I nod and break away from the battle as he takes on twice as many spells. I have to hurry. He won't be able to hold them off for long.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" I shout. "Ron, there's no time to explain. We've walked into a trap. Run through the wall between _Potente Potions and Beyond_ and _The Pureblood's Shrunken Head Shop._ We're here, but you won't see us. Bring backup! Hurry!"

The stag heads off in a flurry of blue and white limbs and I hurriedly turn back to the battle where Draco is about to be overpowered. I quickly send out a rush of spells, one after another. Draco recovers and continues fighting as if he'd never missed a beat.

I almost don't hear the heavy footsteps of the Aurors running onto the premises. I recognize Ron's voice and a few others. Spells go one after another and for the briefest of moments I think we're going to win. Until I see Smith, Fawley, head out of the room with a briefcase in hand. I silently make to follow him and link eyes with Draco through the myriad of red, green, and blue spells lighting up the room, willing him to understand that I'll be okay. I don't know if he got the thought (I've always been shit at Legilimency), but he just nods and looks away. I take it as a good sign and continue following his murderer.

I follow Fawley through a corridor and into a back room where he sets the briefcase down on a table. He opens it to reveal-

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Then he turns to me and smirks. "Expecting a show, Auror Potter?" he spits like my name puts a bad taste in his mouth. "I'm sorry to say that this was just a decoy to lure you to me." I wonder why he's telling me his plans. What good will come out of that? I can easily trap him in an _incarcerous_ and he wouldn't see it coming. Then something yanks me back against a wall.

Sand.

"Ah, yes, you've recognized the sand, I see." Fawley slowly walks towards me and uses his wand to angle my chin up. "It's my signature move. I created it myself."

"How can you see us?" I ask.

"How can I see you? Please, your disguise is mere child's play. Now, should I bury you in sand until your bones are sand themselves or should I fill your lungs with it?"

"Shit. You double-crossed-"

"The universe, yes."

"How?"

"I am not a mortal. I am an equal to the universe. I rule everything you fear to think of. I rule hate, jealousy, hell-"

"Fierro was here with you."

"Yes. You're catching up. You see," he takes a step back and smirks at me. "Long ago, the Universe lived in harmony. It ruled everything and nothing. Everything was seemingly...perfect. But life was threatened when the Sahara started growing; when life on other planets began to deplete; when the color got taken from the night sky; when life couldn't survive on the moon.

"The Universe didn't like this. She searched day and night for the culprit, finding me within herself. She expelled me- the desserts, space, death- and banished me into nothingness. But I am a part of her, and I came back to rule the Universe and end all life- beginning with recreating the Earth."

I frown and struggle against the sand trapping me. I've got to get out. "Why? Why do you want to recreate everything?"

Fawley laughs. "Because you mortals have ruined everything. I created a world where you could die during your golden years. But you wanted to live longer. You wanted to become older and wiser. The army of death is crippled. Most of them can't even make it to the surface of the Earth to fight. I want to reverse that."

"And you think you can?"

"I know I can."

"But there was a setback to your plan, wasn't there?" I ask, snidely. "You have a mortal body. You were trying to restore yourself to your true form, weren't you? You wanted to regain your full power."

Fawley snarls and the sand gets tighter around my neck. "Yes, this body is a bit of an issue." He smiles. "But not for long. Not even you can stop me, Auror Potter," he says and makes a fist.

My mouth begins to slowly fill with sand. I try to spit but it fills just as quickly as it leaves. I won't be able to breathe in a few moments. I'm being suffocated.

Fawley opens another briefcase and pulls out a cauldron. Then he pulls out a vial and a silver knife. "You ready," he asked. He walks up to me and slits my arm, gathering my blood in the vial. I try to move but I can't. "The blood of the pure. Don't worry. The blood's coming directly from your comatose body."

I struggle and cough heavily. I'm rapidly losing consciousness. Fawley pours my blood into the potion and it bubbles sickeningly. Then he snaps his fingers and it goes completely silent.

"Aurors," he whispered. "Come get me."

I'm fading in and out of consciousness when entire Auror force bursts through the doors firing spells. But as quickly as they move, they can't save me. They can't even save themselves. They stop moving as if a widespread _petrificus totalus_ has been cast over them. Fawley walks forward and grabs Draco. I'm almost unconscious.

He pulls up Draco's sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark. "Oh, Draco Malfoy. You could've given me blood yourself," he says, examining the healed cuts on Draco's arm before making a fresh one of his own. He gathers it in the same bloody vial that mine was in and pours it into the cauldron. The potion bubbles and he stirs it twice before turning off the fire. The sand around me disappears and I fall to the ground coughing up sand and blood, trying to inhale some oxygen without choking.

"You're in no condition to fight, Auror Potter," he says. "Thank you for the blood. You've helped cause your own downfall." He scoops up some of the blood red potion and pours it into a vial. "Cheers," he says before drinking. His skin begins to shift then stops. Fawley looks perplexed and moves to the potion, examining it.

I cough and shakily cast an _augamenti_, willing my hands to still. I swish the water around in my mouth for a bit before spitting it out. "Fuck," I say, grounding myself as my vision swims. I look over to Fawley. "You think my blood was pure?" I say and his head jerks over to me. I shift and lean my body against the wall. "I'm an Auror. Hell, I'm Harry Potter. I killed a man when I was eleven. I killed two men during the duel that killed me. I cast a _Cruciatus_ on Amycus Carrow during the second wizarding war, not to mention casting _Imperius_ on two others. I'm far from pure. And you just botched your only chance of getting your body back."

"Shut up!" yells Fawley, shooting sand at me, but I deflected it. "You know nothing!"

"I know enough. You would've had more luck coming for a baby. Even Voldemort tried that, and he wasn't the sharpest needle in the bunch," I say, pushing myself up off the wall. "You'll never succeed."

"Enough!" Fawley shoots a spell at me and I can't deflect it this time. My lungs are filling with sand and I can't stop it.

"Harry!" Yells Draco, breaking the spell Fawley had him under. "_Avada Kedavra_!" he screams but Fawley dodges it and shoots his own spell. But the shock of Draco breaking his spell must've broken his focus because the Aurors regain control over their bodies in a tornado of movement, surrounding Fawley and shooting spells at him. Draco comes over to me and starts casting random healing spells, trying to find something that will fix the damage.

"Draco," I say but he doesn't stop. "Draco it's okay. I'm at St. Mungo's, remember? They'll see that something is going on with my lungs."

"Harry," he says, tears rolling down his face. "Don't die, you hear me? Don't fucking die."

"Draco-"

"I need you, Harry, you arsehole. Don't die, please don't die."

"Draco! A fire spell. Cast a fire spell at him!"

He looks confused. "I don't-"

"Glass! He can't fire anymore sand spells if we turn the sand to glass! You have to set his body on fire!"

Draco's eyes widen and he quickly gets up to try it. I don't see much but I can see the flare of fire as a fade out of consciousness. The last thing I hear before I pass out is Fawley's scream.

I wake up in a hospital bed and Ron and Hermione are hovering over me. Ron noticed that I'm awake first.

"Harry! You're okay!"

Hermione smiles with tears in her eyes. "They had to regrow your lungs. We weren't sure if you were going to make it. We still don't know how the sand spells got to you when your body wasn't even at the duel."

My answering smile feels more like a grimace and I sigh. "What happened to the drugs?"

"We got the whole lot of them from the basement of the warehouse. It looks like they were planning on a widespread release of them. But, Harry, how did you send me that pratronus?" Ron asks me.

"Oh, you know me. Out of body experiences and such," I say and they roll their eyes. Luckily, Ron and Hermione know better than to question me when I say crazy things like that. I'll explain it to them later, anyways. "Is Draco okay?"

"I'm fine, Golden Boy. Honestly, stop having to get your body parts regrown. It's getting annoying."

I lean up a bit in my bed and prop myself up on my elbows. "Hey."

"Hey," he says.

Ron and Hermione leave the room and leave me and Draco alone for a moment.

"What happened?" I ask.

Draco pulls a chair up to my bed and sits in it. "Well, we defeated the bad guy. What more do you want to know?"

I smile. "Nothing. That's all I needed." I want to ask him is he got any injuries but he's looking at me as if he's conflicted about something. "Draco?"

That's all I get in before he kisses me. And before I know it, I'm kissing him back.

"Harry, do you want to go on a date with me?"

I smile and kiss him again. "Yes," I murmur.

"Good," he says. "You know, I think the Universe could've beat Fawley on her own. I don't think she needed us."

"Maybe she just wanted me to bugger you senseless," I say and he smacks my arm before kissing me again.

"I know that's what_ I_ want, but you needn't be so crass about it," he says, smirking at the blush spreading down my chest.

"Whatever," I say.

And maybe this _is_ what the Universe wanted. If not, I damn sure did, and I'm sure the man next to me wanted it too.


End file.
